Today was our second day of creating campaign materials that we will eventually use in our Presidential Campaign "Glogs" on Glogster.

Students are currently creating postcard mailers, 3-fold brochures, business cards, and tear-off posters that support the candidates in our classroom that are running for the presidency. Soon, we will be creating T-shirts, campaign buttons, lawn signs, bumper stickers, radio ads, and television commercials! All of these will be put onto our glogs that we create and embed on our blogs!

Creating campaign advertisements is causing my students to think critically about which issues they find important enough to put on their final products. They are putting it into their own words, and working collaboratively to make each product creative and attention-grabbing. Students have been using Microsoft Word templates to start their products, and I've seen them use PhotoBooth to create many of the photos that you see within many of the products that I posted on this blog entry. I've already seen some students doing things on PhotoBooth that I didn't know was possible - I'll be stealing those ideas!!! :)

The best part of all of this is that I am showing them a few initial steps to get them started, and they are taking it to amazing levels! They are learning how to ask each other questions instead of only going to me. I have become a last resort! This has freed me up to help solve the most complicated issues instead of an endless line of simple concerns. It has caused my students to feel more confident because they get a chance to be an expert about something!

This process is taking a lot of class time, but the 21st Century skills that are coming out of it are invaluable! Everything else this year will become so much easier to them and to me due to these experiences. This is also setting up a wonderful opportunity for students to edit and revise their products based on my suggestions. It is much more authentic than a worksheet or a D.O.L. sheet. So many kids are forgetting capitals and periods these days, but I will remind them how important it is that our campaign advertisements are error-free. :)

You should see some of these products! When we are done with our glogs, I will post some of them online in this blog for everyone to see. For now, feel free to visit each student's e-Portfolio and download some of the files that they have uploaded. (This process has worked nicely as our version of "Dropbox" by the way.)

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